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Monday 16 September 2019, 11.00am – Ian Wark Theatre, Clayton

Accelerating Materials Development

Dr. Jatin Kumar
Institute of Materials Research & Engineering (IMRE) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)

Abstract

The framework of scientific research has not changed much over the past few decades. The Edisonian approach employed is a linear albeit incoherent process that is time consuming and often incapable of succinctly capturing the complexities and nuances of research areas such as materials science. In this talk, I introduce a new paradigm of accelerating materials development by 10 times or greater by bringing together strong multi-disciplinary knowledge, high throughput experimentation, high performance computing and artificial intelligence. I will demonstrate the framework and how one can conceptualize its application towards every-day research, and provide case studies where two or more of the disciplines above have been employed to address complex materials problems. With this new approach, we hope to address the modern challenges in materials science by achieving the accuracy and calculation speed of computers, while retaining the intuition and serendipity of researchers.

Bio

Jatin Kumar is a staff scientist at the Institute of Materials Research & Engineering (IMRE) of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore. He received his PhD from the University of New South Wales, Australia under Prof. Martina Stenzel. His present research interests are in accelerating material design by augmenting his traditional interests in macromolecular design, polymeric encapsulation for drug delivery and stimuli-responsive polymers with machine-learning and high-throughput experimentation.

If you are interested in further discussion with the speaker, please contact Shaun Howard (shaun.howard@csiro.au)

Tuesday 17 September 2019, 11.00am – Ian Wark Theatre, Clayton

Treatment of Bacterial Infections with Porous Silicon Nanoparticles

Prof. Michael J. Sailor
University of California, San Diego, USA

Abstract

The use of porous silicon nanoparticles for peptide-targeted delivery of therapeutic payloads and for luminescence imaging will be described. One area where there is clearly an unmet therapeutic need is in the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, and the deployment of porous silicon nanoparticles to meet this challenge will be described. Porous Si nanoparticles can be simultaneously loaded and sealed using aqueous solutions of the desired therapeutic (siRNA or small molecule antibiotics will be used as examples) in the presence of calcium or magnesium ions. The resulting nanostructures consist of drug loaded into the mesopores of the nanoparticle and sealed with biodegradable calcium or magnesium silicate. Attachment of functional peptides imparts targeting and cell penetration properties to the constructs that show improved gene silencing and therapeutic outcomes in vivo. The intrinsic photoluminescence that derives from quantum confinement in the silicon skeleton provides a built-in luminescent probe that can be used for in vivo and in vitro imaging and self-reporting drug delivery in these systems.

Bio

Michael J. Sailor is Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, where he holds Affiliate Appointments in the Bioengineering, the Nanoengineering, and the Materials Science and Engineering programs. Trained as a chemist, Sailor received a B.S. degree from Harvey Mudd College in 1983 and a Ph.D. degree from Northwestern University in 1988. He is Associate Editor of the journal ACS Sensors, and he serves on the advisory boards of Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Nanoscale Horizons, and Applied Physics Letters. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the U.S. National Academy of Inventors, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.

If you are interested in further discussion with the speaker, please contact Helmut Thissen (helmut.thissen@csiro.au)